For Kimberley and Jason Graham-Nye, home is where the kids are. And the barking dog. And the singing man playing a guitar.

“Sailboat, sailboat, swinging in the breeze!” yodels the young man, sitting on a tiny stool in the front room of the Graham-Nyes’ rambling old house in Northwest Portland.

Three little boys squeal and roll around on a shag rug. The dog licks a woman sitting near the boys, then stumbles over the pile of shoes littering the hall.

This is the Village People, the day-care establishment on the first floor of the Graham-Nyes’ home. Upstairs are the offices of gDiapers, the Graham-Nyes’ startup diaper business. And on the third floor are the Graham-Nyes’ living quarters, home to Kimberley and Jason and their sons, Fynn, 4, and Harper, 18 months.

The Graham-Nyes admit it’s all a bit cramped, so they’re planning to move. Everybody – the Graham-Nyes and their kids, their employees and their kids, their day-care staff and maybe even the guitar guy – soon will decamp to a bigger house in the same neighborhood.

That whole life-work balance thing? They’ve chosen to do it their own way.

And the Graham-Nyes have done the same with their business, a diaper company that sidesteps the cloth-or-disposable question with a third option: flushable, biodegradable diapers.

Like disposables, gDiapers get tossed; like cloth, they’re worn inside washable fabric covers. They offer the convenience of disposables without the guilt, the eco-pride of cloth without the hassle.

“We’re a completely new and different product,” says Kimberley Graham-Nye, sitting on a green yoga ball in the bedroom that serves as hers and Jason’s office. “GDiapers is radically better for the environment than anything else on the market.”

The Graham-Nyes didn’t invent the gDiaper; they discovered it as new parents living in Australia, under the name Baby Weenee Eco Nappy.

“It was the answer to all our prayers,” Kimberley says. “Water use is an issue there, so to be able to flush and compost was fabulous.”

Between them, the lanky, laid-back Graham-Nyes – he was born in Sydney, Australia, she in Montreal – have essayed a variety of careers: telecommunications, guidebook writing, teaching and translating Japanese, stockbroking, orphanage and HIV-prevention work in Mexico and Zanzibar.

Ultimately, none were satisfying. As Jason says, all their jobs offered either “money and no meaning, or meaning and no money.” GDiapers, the pair recognized, might provide both.

So they licensed the product for sale outside of Australia and New Zealand and went shopping for a new home base. “North America was attractive – there were more natural grocery chains and big distributors,” Jason says. “We picked Portland for its livability and environmental sensibility.”

“Portland seems to be becoming the epicenter of the green community in the country,” Kimberley adds. “Besides, we had read in a parenting magazine that Portland was the No. 1 city in America to have a baby, based on such criteria as breastfeeding support groups and employment leave for parents.”

Online customers count a lot

They moved to Portland just over two years ago. The gDiaper – a redesign of the Australian original, complete with new, hip-sounding name – hit local stores in November 2005. By July of this year, the diaper had reached the East Coast.

Today, according to the company’s Web site, gDiapers are available in more than 200 stores nationwide, including the Whole Foods and Wild Oats chains. This month, they’ll go on sale at Fred Meyer stores. And still, Jason says, half of their sales come solely from the Web site.

Disposable diapers swaddle most U.S. babies, accounting for 90 percent to 95 percent of a market valued at around $4 billion. But in recent years, the lowly nappy has diversified.

Chlorine-free disposables, put out by such companies as Seventh Generation and TenderCare, are available online and at natural-foods stores. And several international companies offer partly biodegradable and compostable disposables.

Even cloth, clinging to that remaining 5 percent to 10 percent of the diaper market, has undergone a makeover, with bleach-free cotton and hemp fabrics available as well as cute wool and fleece diaper covers. As for those awkward, painful diaper pins? Lost in the Velcro revolution.

Diapers go down the pipes

What distinguishes the gDiaper, the Graham-Nyes say, is its flushability. (The diaper has been certified for flushing down low-consumption toilets by the National Sanitation Foundation.)

“Twenty-six diapers a day get flushed down the pipes here in this house, and we haven’t had a problem,” Kimberley says. “Wet only” gDiapers also are compostable.

“Even if you did throw flushables away, you’re still helping the environment,” Kimberley says. “There’s no upstream, for example – no oil required to manufacture the plastics. And it’s not going to take 500 years to degrade.”

Babies go through an average of 5,000 diapers before toilet training. That doesn’t include the adult diaper market, valued at around $1 billion in North America; as the U.S. population ages, this market is expected to eventually surpass that of infants.

“Adults don’t have a cloth option,” Kimberley says. “It’s like wearing a plastic bag around your body.” The Graham-Nyes plan to add adult designs to the gDiaper lineup.

Cost is a few dollars more

Kimberley says the typical gDiaper parent is generally either environmentally conscious or plagued by diaper rash. “There’s also the cuteness factor,” she says, holding up a brightly colored “little g,” the cotton-nylon diaper cover that comes with every gDiapers starter kit.

Pricewise, the gDiaper is comparable to the chlorine-free disposables; both retail for an average of 35 to 40 cents apiece. “I like to say we’re a latte more a week, or about $3 more a week or so than (conventional) disposables,” Kimberley says.

The Graham-Nyes practice what they preach; sons Fynn and Harper have never worn anything but gDiapers. Fynn, clad in pajamas, wanders in to check on his mom. Downstairs, Harper spots his tall dad from across the busy day care and toddles over, arms open.

“G’day, mate, how are ya?” bellows Jason, swooping up his younger son. “The way we live now offers everything we need,” he says. “We can all be together, and make a difference, and we’re commercially viable. Every time you sell a product, you have an impact.”

On the Web:
www.gdiapers.com

Vital stats

• Average price of an eco-friendly disposable diaper: 35 to 40 cents
• Average price of a conventional disposable diaper: 25 cents
• Average price of a cloth diaper from a diaper service: 13 to 17 cents
• Average price of a cloth diaper laundered at home: 7 to 9 cents
(Source: Municipal Solid Waste Journal)

• Number of disposable diapers tossed into U.S. landfills each year: 20 billion
• Weight of those diapers in pounds: 7 billion
(Source: Environmental Protection Agency)